Betascape Debriefing – Art Meets Tech

Posted by Mobomo on September 27, 2011

Several of our designers and developers spent this past weekend attending sessions on art and technology and talking to people about Intridea’s methods at Betascape. The event pulled together artists and technologists from various industries and demonstrated what is happening on the bleeding edge of that intersection – from robotics to personal fabrication to data visualization.

The most popular session among the Intridea contingent was Kyle Fritz‘s talk, “Computers Suck, The Internet Rules: How to make networked stuff that interacts with the real world.” Kyle touched on ways to virtually control your home stereo, locks, lights, and other household objects that can be remotely manipulated with just a simple working knowledge of electronics and a bit of hacking. It was a great example to our designers of how advanced technology can be accessible and useful to them.

Kyle’s talk inspired Charles and Ted to help out on the screenhead project. So they partnered with Jonathan Julian of 410Labs, forked Kyle’s project, integrated the Google Street View API and the Tropo API. These additions allowed users to send a text with instructions like “name + map” (to open the recipient’s browser and bring up a Google street view of the person’s geographical location) or “name + image” (to open the recipient’s browser and display a Google image search of the given name).

Overall, the presentations focused on the interactivity of art and science and the advantages gained from fluid, collaborative relationships between artists and technologists. We enthusiastically supported this event because we understand the intrinsic value of the relationship between art and technology. This is why we employ agile methods in both design and development, ensuring that our UX and Development teams work together closely throughout the entire cycle of design and development. Our goal is to create applications that are both visually stunning, usable, and technologically sound. We achieve this goal project after project by joining our designers with our developers in every step of the process. Design and development don’t happen asynchronously on our teams – they happen congruently, and the results are always incredible.

When the two teams work closely together to create working systems an interesting thing happens: the designer begins to understand the mind of the developer and can intuit their feedback. This helps the designer work more effectively. Additionally, the developer begins to understand the mind of the designer and begins to think of their code with visual form and clarity.

A French composer understood what could come of the innovator and the creator working together:

I dream of a collaboration that would finally be total, in which the librettist would often think as a composer and the composer as a librettist.

Jacques Ibert

We’ve learned a lot from working with each other and through cultivating a mutual appreciation for the idiosyncratic talents we all bring to the table. That is why we enthusiastically support events like Betascape and it’s why we’re always happy to talk about our process and strategy with others. We’re interested in hearing how others are working collaboratively with art and technology, so please add your thoughts to the comments below!